After Breaking the Ice-Beauty's Heart - Chapter 15

Chapter 15: The Reason Memories Are So Beautiful Is That You Can Never Go Back.

Zhou Nianzhi took a deep breath, and after getting her emotions in check, she slowly spoke, “Lin An, it’s Nianzhi.”

There was silence on the other end, followed by a rustling sound, like someone jumping out of bed.

Zhou Nianzhi could imagine Lin An on the other side of the phone, utterly shocked and checking the number multiple times.

Lin An still couldn’t believe it. “Nianzhi! Is that really you?! You’re not lying, are you? Don’t lie to me, I don’t have any money.”

“Can’t you even recognize my voice?” Zhou Nianzhi chuckled, thinking that Lin An hadn’t changed at all after all these years. “Liǎnlian.”

A wave of excited screaming erupted from the other side.

“Ah—”

Zhou Nianzhi held the phone slightly away from her ear to keep Lin An’s voice from bursting her eardrum.

She didn’t bring the phone back to her ear until the screaming stopped. But as soon as she did, a new wave of earth-shattering crying and wailing began.

“Only Nianzhi and Yunyun call me ‘Liǎnlian,’ boo hoo hoo, it really is you,” Lin An sobbed. “You actually remembered to find me, Zhou Nianzhi, you’re so heartless…”

Zhou Nianzhi’s own emotions, which had just subsided, all came rushing back when she heard Lin An’s crying. She also started to cry. “Boo hoo hoo Liǎnlian, I just called you, and you’re already scolding me, boo hoo hoo…”

“Why are you crying, too? In a bit, Song Yuli is going to feel bad for you again.” As Lin An wiped away her own tears, she felt even more miserable thinking that Zhou Nianzhi still had someone to wipe hers away.

Before Zhou Nianzhi could reply, Lin An started to wail again. “I’ve been wanting to say this for years: no wonder I always felt like Song Yuli had it out for me. It wasn’t until you two got together that I realized it was because I was too close to you, boo hoo hoo hoo…”

Zhou Nianzhi started crying even louder.

Lin An sensed that something was wrong. She quickly composed herself and asked cautiously, “Is she not at home?”

Zhou Nianzhi continued to cry, and Lin An could hear the sobs and gasps in her voice.

Lin An boldly guessed the worst. “Don’t cry anymore. What’s wrong? Did you guys have a fight? That shouldn’t be it, with how much you two loved each other, no matter what…”

Zhou Nianzhi cried as she spoke, interrupting Lin An. “We broke up, boo hoo hoo hoo…”

“What!” Lin An nearly jumped ten feet high on her bed. “You’re saying you two broke up?”

Zhou Nianzhi sniffled, “Yeah…”

Lin An still couldn’t believe it. “But when I spoke to Song Yuli a couple of days ago, she didn’t mention it.”

“We broke up two years ago,” Zhou Nianzhi said, wiping her nose and calming down a little. She stopped crying.

“Huh? So you ran away because you broke up?” Lin An remembered Zhou Nianzhi’s sudden disappearance two years ago. She had even changed her number and hadn’t left any way to contact her. When she went to her house, no one knew where she had gone. “Zhou Nianzhi, you’re something else. You actually abandoned your good friends, who had been with you for so many years, all for love.”

“I’m sorry…” Zhou Nianzhi put her feet up on the sofa, curling into a ball and hugging herself.

“I knew it. Why would Song Yuli, who has never liked me, actively ask me for my contact information? I was hesitant to give it to her at first, thinking she was cheating. But then I thought, why would she cheat on you with me? She must have wanted to know more about you, so I gave it to her. But don’t worry, I completely forgot I had her number. I didn’t even think to ask her when I was looking for you.”

Lin An couldn’t help but grumble, but she deliberately lowered her voice. For some reason, even though they hadn’t seen each other in a long time, the thought of Song Yuli’s cold gaze still gave her chills.

Zhou Nianzhi couldn’t help but laugh. On the one hand, Lin An didn’t seem to care, yet she had never forgotten her. On the other hand, she cared, but she hadn’t even thought to ask Song Yuli for help when she was looking for her.

As she was talking, Lin An suddenly thought of something strange and asked, “Wait a minute, how did you get my number? My old phone plan wasn’t good anymore, so I got a new SIM card. We were both busy looking for jobs back then and hadn’t been in touch for a while. After I got the new number, I was about to call you to save it, but I couldn’t reach you. Later, I found out that you and Auntie Sheng had disappeared like ghosts, and no one could find you… Wait, I’m getting sidetracked. So where did you get my number from?”

Zhou Nianzhi confessed, “Song Yuli gave it to me.”

Lin An first said, “Oh,” then suddenly realized something was wrong and said rapidly, “So you’re still living together? Didn’t you say you broke up? Did she hear what I just said?”

“No, no,” Zhou Nianzhi quickly denied, so that Lin An wouldn’t let her imagination run wild. “We just saw each other again last month. She just happens to be my neighbor.”

“A neighbor?” Lin An was astonished. “Seriously, you two have some kind of fate!”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Zhou Nianzhi said, deliberately changing the subject to avoid talking about Song Yuli. “By the way, I heard there’s a class reunion?”

Lin An said, “Yes, that’s right. I didn’t know you and Song Yuli had broken up. I was scrolling through my contacts looking for people and found a number with the note ‘Cold.’ I thought about all the classmates with the last name ‘Leng’ for a long time. When I called it, I realized it was Song Yuli. Oh, I should have never used a random note for her. The older I get, the worse my memory gets… Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked again. What was I saying?”

Zhou Nianzhi paused when she heard “bad memory” but quickly came back to herself and said with a small smile, “The class reunion.”

Lin An let out a long “Oh” and continued, “Our class president organized it. He said it would be good for us to get together after all these years. I said okay, and he just handed the task of contacting people to me. He wanted to find you first because you knew so many people, but when he couldn’t reach you, he just came to me, saying that since I knew Zhou Nianzhi, I must also have a lot of people’s contact information… and he went on and on. I agreed, but who knew that almost all our classmates had changed their numbers. It’s been a real pain to find people.”

Zhou Nianzhi hugged herself and listened quietly to Lin An’s rambling. In this moment, she felt as though she was briefly back in high school. Before they were separated for talking too much, Lin An had been the person in front of her, always turning around to chatter. Even the school bell couldn’t stop them from talking.

It felt like nothing had changed.

The students coming and going around her appeared before her eyes again. The living room table turned into a school desk piled high with newly issued test papers. Her drawer was stuffed with textbooks, and the person behind her was complaining about how much homework there was.

Zhou Nianzhi’s mood improved a little. As she chatted, she put on her slippers and walked toward the window to close the curtains.

But as soon as she reached the window, she soberly realized that the reason memories were so beautiful was that you could never go back. No matter how much she wanted to recreate the scenes of the past, she could never recapture the same feelings.

Back then, outside the window were her classmates, running and chasing each other, their laughter bright and clear. Now, it was a silent street, with only the occasional passerby and passing cars under the lamplight.

“Nianzhi!” Lin An called out from the phone. “Why did you stop talking? Did you fall asleep?”

Zhou Nianzhi was no longer lost in thought. She drew the curtains shut and said with a laugh, “Sorry, I just spaced out for a bit.”

When Lin An heard this, she blurted out, “Zhou Nianzhi, you’re doing it again! In school, whenever I talked to you, your eyes would always drift over to Song Yuli. Now, how can you…”

Realizing she had probably said the wrong thing, Lin An quickly stopped talking and racked her brain for a new topic.

Zhou Nianzhi was the one who smoothed things over. “How have you been lately?”

Two years wasn’t a very long time, but for them, who had grown up together and always stayed in touch no matter how busy they were, it was too long.

When they started talking about their current lives, Lin An sighed and said slowly, “Just the usual, I guess. I go to work every day and make a living. When I was young, I wanted to become an idol. Now, I just want to become a monk.”

Zhou Nianzhi chuckled and replied, “Who doesn’t?”

Lin An teased, “You want to become a monk, too?”

Zhou Nianzhi burst out laughing. “Of course not.”

Lin An laughed for a long time on the other end of the phone before slowly saying, “Okay, I won’t tease you anymore. There’s one more thing I’m really curious about. Did you move up north? Your number shows a city in the north.”

Zhou Nianzhi said, “Mhm,” and sat back down, taking a good look around her apartment. Although she had lived here with her mother for so long, she had never felt a sense of belonging.

Lin An continued, “When are you coming home? Are you coming to this class reunion? It seems like a lot of our old classmates are coming.”

Coming home…

The small house in that small southern city.

Is that her home?

No, she no longer had a home.

And besides, there was a demon there.

The fear that arose when she thought of that person’s terrifying face was like a wave rushing toward her, about to drown her.

Zhou Nianzhi’s body trembled, and she could only utter two words: “I’m not.”

“Okay,” Lin An didn’t ask for a reason. She just mumbled in a lighthearted tone, “It’s fine if you don’t come. The class president suddenly organized a reunion, so maybe he earned a lot of money and wants to show off. I don’t have money to show off, but I am curious. I want to see how much money our old classmates have made.”

Hearing Lin An say this, Zhou Nianzhi did relax a bit and replied, “Alright.”

“Hey, Nianzhi, what if I come and visit you during my next holiday!” Lin An suddenly got excited. “I just looked at the calendar. The Dragon Boat Festival is in a few days. Maybe I can come with Yunyun to visit you.”

Zhou Nianzhi froze, swallowing the “Forget it, it’s not a good time for me to meet” that was at the tip of her tongue. She had already broken the hearts of Lin An and Qin Yunyun once. She shouldn’t let them down again.

She would just have to save up some money bit by bit to spend time with them.

So, Zhou Nianzhi replied, “Okay, see you then.”

Lin An happily said, “Mhm.” Then, sleepiness slowly set in. She yawned and looked at the time, startled. “It’s already 3 a.m. Oh no, I have to wake up early for work tomorrow. Let’s chat again soon.”

The call ended, and silence returned. Zhou Nianzhi was lost in thought for a long time. It wasn’t until her eyes started to hurt that she realized she had cried too much.

But she didn’t have time to worry about her swollen eyes. She quickly went to the bathroom to take a shower, preparing to go to bed.

In reality, Zhou Nianzhi wasn’t the only person still awake at that hour.

Song Yuli lay in bed, repeatedly editing her notes app—

1. 1. Remember to take two umbrellas when going out.

1. 1. Must predict the direction she’ll fall.

1. 1. Remember to take a jacket at night.

1. 1. Seize the opportunity to get her contact information.

Looking at the words for point number four, Song Yuli recalled the walk home tonight. Even though she had been so obvious, why had Zhou Nianzhi still pretended not to know?

Her thoughts drifted to the moment before they parted, when Zhou Nianzhi had asked for Lin An’s contact information in front of her.

Truthfully, even if she had to take a step back…

She could have asked Lin An for her number.

No.

That’s not right.

Song Yuli dismissed the thought.

The more she thought about it, the more miserable she felt. She dejectedly let her hand fall onto the blanket, no longer looking at her phone. Her heart ached. Why did Zhou Nianzhi have to ask for someone else’s contact information but not hers?